The 28th edition of the Cavallino Classic kicked off, as always, with the highly anticipated track days at Palm Beach International Raceway. This year, however, Thursday was a private test day and Friday was the only day open to the public. As usual, the cars present did not disappoint, the only downside was that only a few cars made it on to the track. As the value of these cars continues to rise, we find more and more owners are less adventurous with them.
One of the gems from Friday was a Ferrari 250TR that originally began life as a 290MM. It was a beautiful canary yellow with a black partition along the center. Perhaps the coolest part was its ‘scudetto’, which depicted a green lizard directly representing the name of its Brazilian runner ‘Escuderia Lagartixa’. It was quite extraordinary and it was nice to see it at speed on the track as well.
Another big treat was the surprise visit of Ed Davies and his Pontoon 250 Testa Rossa, arguably my favorite of all vintage Ferraris and one I never get tired of photographing as I always seem to find a new angle to bring out its curves.
Of course, where there is a 250 Testa Rossa, there will undoubtedly be a 250 GTO and sure enough Tom Price brought out his to race and display. It ran on the track for a little bit, but was retired soon after.
Another car that Mr. Price brought was a Aston Martin DB2 Prototype racer. A very cool car with amazing details and racing pedigree. I don’t want to say the car looked out of place, but you definitely couldn’t miss it.
A few cars took to the track through out the day, with the vast majority being modern GT cars. There were a few vintage 250s that joined them and also a couple of BB LM’s.
One thing I have learned is that patience is key to capture cars that were covered under canopies all day or that never made it out of the transporters. Such was the case with this 750 Monza, which didn’t move from its covered spot all day until the very end. This was by far my favorite car of the day.
Also hidden away in the transporters were a yellow 410S and a red 335S which only came out for a few minutes while the crews re-arranged the transporters. Needless to say capturing these cars was well worth the wait.
All in all it was a very nice day to experience the cars and the track, I wish I could say the same for the next two days, but unfortunately mother nature was not on our side for the Concours on Saturday.
JG Photo Ventures 